this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2024
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I think we need to walk back a little and manage the expectations as to what "the pandemic is over" means and always meant. It doesn't mean "Covid will go away". It won't. It will never go away. The pandemic is over because it entered into the endemic stage. All the things we did during the pandemic phase of Covid was to save as many people as possible until
A) a vaccine was found (check) and
B) an endemic variant emerged. (Check) an endemic variant is a mutation that's harmless enough so people don't become too sick and spread the bastard around. That's what Omicron is.
Yes, people die of Covid. People die of many pathogens, bow we have one more. But we cannot make it go away. We could mask up, keep distance forever, but that would cost us dearly, if not economically, at least mentally. There will always be Covid deaths from now on and nothing can change that as far as we know. Yet, that was clear from almost day 1 of the pandemic.
Besides: look at who dies of Covid. It's those with weakened immune systems mostly. I want everyone to live as long and as happily as possible, but we need to acknowledge that some are sicker than others and all of us will die. Those who die of Covid are compromised on a way that would have them die from the flu or any number of other pathogens around (for the most part).
Like it or not, that's what the world is like and always has been like. Until we find a way to eradicate viruses, people will die from Covid. End of story.
Source on it being endemic? Because I don't think WHO or CDC declared it endemic. It's expected to become endemic -- that's pretty much common sense -- but the only thing that's happened is the rescinding of public health emergencies, which is not the same as the pandemic being over or it becoming endemic.
The WHO ended it's public health emergency of international concern in 2023.
"Endemic" means that we can predict infection rates. This can happen one year after it has become stable at the earliest, so the fact that it's not called "endemic" yet isn't because we have have left emergency territory, it's because we need at least one year's worth of "stable" data to call it endemic.
So authorities declaring something to be endemic isnt exactly the same as a pandemic being over. They declared the latter, will declare the former with enough data.